In a message dated 7/8/02 5:38:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, NortonMarg@aol.com writes:
>
> The twitchy steering thing is ENTIRELY head angle and fork rake. It has
> nothing to do with drop or chainstay length. Your head angle indicates to
> me
> you want a fork rake somewhere around 30 to 35mm
I read all the posts here, and this is where I see it. The way a bike rides is the sum total of the whole, which is, in fact, reduced to weight distribution. To focus on one dimension, or the other is overlooking the big picture. I have never heard of a Masi with "twitchy" steering. I love Masis, I built them, but I have never liked the ride. Chuck, I believe, commented about the differences in sizes on the masi bikes. This is absolutely true. From my perspective, if a big rider is describing the ride of a bike, and a small rider are to conclude the same description, the bikes have to be decidedly different. The only constant being the distribution of weight. Trust me when I tell you, I have had this conversation many a time with the players involved. From my point of view, if you line up Masis from small to large, I simply do not see what I need to see to conclude that they all would ride the same to the different size riders. When you are building a size offering in one centimeter increments, regardless of what sort of ride you are trying to achieve, there is a progression that I personally look for, and I do not see. This discussion started when I was building them, and the discussion ended with a shrug, and the statement "they are not our product, they are masis, and that is the way they are built" I had respect for that, and I built my product my own way, etc. Final point; I have never seen two people measure anything on a bike, and come up with the same number. I have had road testers in magazines argue with me about measurements. I had an Ebay seller with a Tesch bike that had the size stamped in the BB tell me "it's wrong, I measured it" Bikes shrink when you build them, they are not the same after you braze them, silver will keep it closer, but they all change a certain amount. Dave Tesch Sweating profusely in Milwaukee